Easy Mac Hacks: Finder Column View Customizing Tips

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using with Mac OS X. Sometimes it's a tutorial on a lesser-known feature, other times it's a trick that uses built-in functionality such as Terminal — either way, these simple tips can make life better and easier, and they don’t require any special knowledge. All you need to do is follow the instructions!


If you're like us, then you utilize the Finder's Column view to get the most out of file browsing easily and efficiently. The column view can help you easily drill down into complex directory structures, but sometimes you have to resize the columns on-the-fly to ensure that all of the directory contents are visible to you on the screen. In those times, you might immediately think to grab the drag handles and manually resize, but stop! Before doing that, consult this guide to learn all of the resizing tips and tricks in the Finder.

Resizing All Columns Equally

Sometimes you want to resize all columns equally when in column view in the Finder. In this case, when you have multiple columns open, you simply need to press and hold Shift + Option, and then click and drag on one of the column separator drag handles. As you drag your mouse cursor to the right, the column widths will expand; as you drag the mouse cursor to the left, the column widths will shrink, allowing you to get the perfect sizing to view all of the contents across multiple columns.

Contextual Menu Resizing Options

In addition to resizing the column view in the Finder equally like we showed above, you can also get additional column resizing from the contextual menu in the Finder. To get at this menu, simply right-click (or Control + click) on the column divider.



Here, you'll see options for "Right Size This Column," "Right Size All Columns Individually," and "Right Size All Columns Equally." ("Right Size" means it'll automatically make the file names fit.) You can play around with these settings to get just the right look and feel for the column view.

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